GRID: General Motors’s future growth will depend on greater access to wind and solar generation through expanded transmission lines. The Detroit company has pledged to get 100 percent of electricity from renewables by 2050. (Bloomberg)

EFFICIENCY: A Wisconsin nonprofit is successfully using gaming as a way to promote energy efficiency behavior. (Midwest Energy News)

FRAC SAND: A prospective frac sand company with claims to thousands of acres in southeastern Minnesota will challenge a county’s frac sand mining ban in a higher court. (La Crosse Tribune)

EMISSIONS:
• A company providing electricity and steam to industrial customers in southeastern Michigan wants to increase its capacity, which would add hundreds of tons of air pollutants a year. (Detroit Free Press)• New York and Connecticut officials file a complaint with the U.S. EPA for allegedly missing a deadline and failing to enforce the Clean Air Act stemming from air pollution from Illinois, Michigan, and three other states. (Albany Times Union)

SOLAR:
• Dozens of homeowner associations across central Indiana are putting up barriers to residential solar installations. (Indianapolis Star)
• Officials in Ann Arbor, Michigan amend local zoning rules to prohibit ground-mounted solar panels in front yards. (Michigan Daily)• An Indiana town sees a five-fold increase in the number of homes with solar installations since the summer. (Elkhart Truth)

CLEAN ENERGY: Nebraska advocates urge utilities to adopt a “Husker Power Plan” that would increase the use of wind, solar and energy efficiency and cut greenhouse gases by 58 percent over five years. (Omaha World-Herald)

POLITICS: A former photographer at the U.S. Department of Energy says he was fired in retaliation for making public photos of agency officials meeting with the CEO of Ohio-based Murray Energy. (Associated Press)

COMMENTARY: The chairman of a consumer advocacy group says as electric vehicle adoption grows, the state needs “regulations and policies that enable equitable deployment of EV infrastructure.” (Traverse City Record-Eagle)

Andy has been a journalism fellow for Midwest Energy News since 2014, following four years at City Pulse, Lansing’s alt-weekly newspaper. He is a graduate of Michigan State University’s Journalism School, where he focused on topics covered by the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism and wrote for the Great Lakes Echo. He was the 2008 and 2009 recipient of the Edward Meeman Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Student in Environmental Journalism at MSU.